


The Clarity of Glass

by Skaapsteker



Category: Wings of Fire - Tui T. Sutherland
Genre: F/M, Thoughtful is also synesthetic, canon event from different perspective, glassblowing, the Dreamvisitor Trio gets a cameo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 15:49:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11740215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skaapsteker/pseuds/Skaapsteker
Summary: No one had ever understood Thoughtful's sculptures, up to the night of Queen Vigilance's Glass Jubilee.





	The Clarity of Glass

If one looked at Thoughtful, and then at the _Cascade of Dreams_ , it wouldn’t be easy to guess that the latter had come out of the former’s talons and breath and brain. And yet there it was - a newly-finished glass sculpture standing in Thoughtful’s family’s joint studio, the dragonet regarding it with deep orange pride.  
The sculpture stood slightly taller than Thoughtful when he was on all fours. It depicted a waterfall, with a river flowing above and a lake pooling below, all flanked by boulders. Two NightWing paws rested on the river, the right laying flat on top as if stilling the river, the left poised in writing position with the tip of its index talon connected by the tiniest speck of glass to where the water began to curve down.  
The fact that a dragonet Thoughtful's age had made this almost completely by himself (with only minimal technical help from his parents) was pretty incredible in its own right. But there was a part of it that would've been remarkable no matter the creator's age: the words. Minuscule pieces of scroll were embedded in specially-made pockets of air, torn from the most worn-out of documents that even the library had tossed out.  
He’d finished it just in time. The Glass Jubilee of Queen Vigilance was coming up, and it would be the perfect place for this sculpture. Thoughtful had had a few of his previous works displayed at exhibitions, but this was bigger than any of them - the perfect opportunity to prove his chops at the family business.  
Even if no one actually understood the meaning behind the sculpture. Which was what always happened. It wasn’t that other dragons disliked Thoughtful’s work - they liked it well enough, but they always walked away confused. Not that he could really blame them. His artwork was based on the way he saw the world - colour to emotion, tiny details that mattered, and wordless metaphors rising from impressions (the idea for the _Cascade of Dreams_ had come from a connection between the power and scope of language and that of a waterfall).  
Still, it was worth showing, even if no one else could figure it out.

The jubilee-organizer came the next night. Thoughtful recognized him from a couple of past encounters. His name was Opulence, and he was related, albeit not very closely, to the royal family.  
“Your son is truly talented,” he said, standing in the studio and examining the _Cascade_. “His pieces keep getting better each time I see them.”  
It sounded awfully like a stock response, and he either didn’t notice or didn’t care about the pieces of scroll that Thoughtful was so proud of. But then the green-black notes that that brought lifted up into a sea of matte blue as Opulence nodded his approval.  
_I’m going to have my work exhibited at the Queen’s own celebration!_

Thoughtful spent the next several nights in an acid-green haze of anticipation. On the night of the jubilee, he was one of the first dragons to enter. He wandered around for a few minutes, looking at fellow glassblowers’ sculptures, then made a beeline for the scroll tower table in one of the game pavilions. He wasn’t much of a party dragon, and playing games, especially his favourite one, was the best way to get out of dancing and trying to awkwardly strike up conversation.  
Still, it was more fun to play with others than solitaire. Thoughtful looked up from the table, searching for someone he’d feel comfortable asking to join him. His eyes fell on Listener, a mind-reader he recognized from his math class. (Come to think of it, hadn’t she asked him recently what he liked to do at parties?) From what he’d seen, she was generally friendly and upbeat - probably a great gaming partner.  
Thoughtful got out from behind the table and headed for Listener and her strange group of friends. There was a smaller female NightWing with a face that looked like it was made for worrying, Darkstalker the famous thrice-moonborn NightWing/IceWing hybrid (who, apart from a few silver scales on his sides, partially serrated wing-claws, and slightly different scale patterns on his neck, looked like a regular NightWing, which was weird), his sister with the black scales and white wing membranes whose name he couldn’t recall, and those two SeaWings who had come on royal orders.  
“Hey.”  
Listener’s wings twitched and her tail swished wildly, as if his statement had been an electric shock.  
“Hey,” Darkstalker replied, having turned around to face him. “I know you from…music class? You’re Thoughtful, right?”  
“Yeah.” Thoughtful peered over his glasses at the group, low-key trying to find someone less likely to accidentally tail-slam the game table. “I just, uh - I just wondered if anyone wanted to try a scroll tower challenge with me.”  
“Maybe,” said Listener, grinning as she began to get up.  
“I’m Clearsight,” one of her friends - the worried-looking NightWing - said quickly, smiling at him. “Our SeaWing friend is Fathom, and have you, um… have you met Whiteout?”  
As if on cue, the black-and-white hybrid, who must’ve been Whiteout, sat bolt upright and began clapping.  
“WINNER! Empress of all scales and queen of all squares! Weep for your tokens, adversaries!”  
Now he noticed that she was lithe, with long horns and spikes and neat, almost manicured claws. Those were three examples of things that made Thoughtful weak in the knees. His mind began to run in orange.  
Her eyes widened as she noticed him. “Oh, look how shiny you are.”  
“Shiny? Whiteout, what are you ever talking about?” asked Listener, with at least a hint of derision.  
Whiteout ignored her. She reached across the board, took one of Thoughtful’s paws, spread his fingers with those clean-cut claws, and peered at the black scales on his palms.  
“ _You_ made the _Cascade of Dreams_ ,” she said, and Thoughtful remembered the old rumour that the three moons continued to bestow power shortly after the Brightest Night.  
“Words and glass, spun flutes and verse. Waterfalls of language in fire-blown claws.” she continued, and then let go of his paw.  
The orange bud in Thoughtful's brain began to sparkle.  
“You noticed?” He suddenly began to stumble over his words. “No one - you really saw the pieces of scroll inside the waves.”  
Whiteout smiled, which only made her prettier.  
“Tangerine. Probability. Spelunking.” Which meant “Based on the pieces of scroll, it was likely that you were making a statement about language. Your piece has the depth of a cave, which not many dragons can travel in.” And something about tangerines…  
_Or is that tangerine? As in the colour? Could she… could she be like me in that respect, too?_  
“I can’t believe you saw that!” The sparkling bud inside him exploded and turned to a swirling mixture of colours - well, mostly just deep purple, like the sky shortly after sunset. “Nobody’s ever understood one of my pieces before.”  
“I think you should teach me glassblowing, and I should teach you clarity.” Whiteout told him.  
Thoughtful looked at the board game that she’d been playing when he showed up. Very strategic placing of tokens on her side. He looked back up and shyly smiled.  
“How is the empress of scales at scroll tower?”  
“Amazing. You’re going to die of awe.”  
“Alright, then. Come with me.”  
Thoughtful turned around and went back to his table, but this time he was walking side by side with a dragon who’d made him see royal purple. A very fitting name for how he felt.

Whiteout had been telling the truth - she was amazing at scroll tower. They’d played the night away (not that anyone was complaining about them taking the table).  
Near the end of the party, Thoughtful finally gathered up his courage and asked her the question that wouldn’t leave him alone.  
“Do your feelings have colours?” he asked, his voice suddenly trembling.  
“Yes.”  
_She said it! She’s like me! I’m not alone!_  
Then Whiteout realized what must’ve been the case, and her wings jolted, partially unfurling.  
“Yours too?” she asked. Thoughtful simply nodded, and she grinned, rearing up on her front legs and hugging him.  
Thoughtful was no mind-reader, but he knew that the gist of her thoughts was _He’s like me! There’s someone like me, who sees his feelings like I do, and I met him!_  
And in that moment, there was nothing else. Just two beautiful dragonets, one in a sea of purple and blue and the other in (as he’d later learn) in one of white and lighter blue.

As the weeks passed, the two dragonets’ paths crossed more and more often. Sometimes it was just an exchanged smile and a wave of a paw across the hallway at school. Sometimes it was talkative flights home, until their paths had to diverge and Thoughtful would call out “Have a nice day!” and Whiteout would yell something to the same effect in reply.  
And sometimes, it was school-less nights like this, nights spent walking on the bedrock of the canyons with the moons lighting their way.  
“Did your dad approve of you coming here?” Thoughtful asked. He’d encountered Arctic several times, and he was glad he’d never had to talk to the IceWing ex-prince.  
“Yes and no.” said Whiteout. “He allowed me to be here in this moment, yet he does not approve of your obsidian against my snow and jet. In a turn of prospects, he may try to steal our eddying blizzard from me.”  
“Oh.” Thoughtful took a moment to digest this information. “If that happens, I promise I’ll do everything in my power to get you back.”  
This wasn’t a very hopeful promise, especially since Arctic was an animus dragon on top of just generally scary, but it was better than no promise at all.  
Whiteout smiled, although with a tinge of sadness. Then that disappeared as she remembered something.  
“So, are we going to perform a trade of adroitnesses?”  
Wow, I forgot all about that. “Sure.” he said. “I’ll just have to ask my parents if you can come over.”

The next night, after Thoughtful had asked his parents whether he could bring his girlfriend over, they flew to his family’s cave.  
“Welcome to my humble abode.” Thoughtful said, landing on the porch-ledge.  
“Looks chartreuse.” Whiteout stuck out the tips of her forked purple tongue, but in a playful rather than disgusted way.  
“Mom, Dad, we’re here!”  
Thoughtful’s mother, Veracity, came up to them. Her eyes widened slightly as she saw just who her son’s new girlfriend was.  
“You’re Arctic and Foeslayer’s daughter, aren’t you?” she asked. “The IceWing hybrid.”  
Whiteout didn’t respond.  
“Well, you’re lucky,” said Veracity, turning towards Thoughtful and lowering her voice. “She’s quite a beauty!” She raised her voice again, looking at Whiteout. “Come in.”  
“Do you have any prey?” asked Whiteout as she looked around the main chamber. “It would be beneficial for us to replenish ourselves before we can begin shaping fire.”  
Veracity looked momentarily confused, then nodded.  
“Yes, we have some fresh boar and ostrich. Take your pick.”  
As the two dragonets ate the boar, Thoughtful’s father, Sapience, came up to them.  
“Hello, Whiteout,” he said, sitting down next to her. “I’ve seen you before, out in the city.”  
She tensed slightly, and a pulse of purplish-red worry alighted in Thoughtful’s mind. _What if he doesn’t approve of our relationship because of who she is, or the way she talks?_  
This was followed by another, stronger pulse of dark green relief as Sapience added “But don’t you worry. Your reputation means nothing to me, as long as my son likes you and you’re good to each other.”  
_Thanks, Dad._  
Then he got up and walked to his chamber, probably to work on some sketches for potential sculpture designs.  
“I can see where you get your shine from.” said Whiteout, cleaning off the boar’s ribs.

After they finished eating, Thoughtful led Whiteout to the family glassblowing studio, one long, oxbow-shaped tunnel away from the dining room.  
The studio was a very large space, easily the largest room in the whole cave. Torches were set into the walls, as the chamber was fairly deep into the cliffside and NightWings couldn’t see in actual pitch darkness. The left wall was entirely taken up by large shelves holding the family’s earlier works, with the largest objects on the lowest shelf and the smallest objects on the topmost. (Anything too large to fit on the lowest shelf was sold.) The opposing wall had a low-to-the ground shelf holding the molten glass scoops, glassblowing pipes, and goggles. Above it was a series of cubbyholes holding numerous short sticks of differently-coloured glass, supplied from a shop run by an old dragon who made them out of beach sand. The furthest wall had a large furnace, similar to the type used for metalworking, built into it.  
“Alright, let’s get started.” said Thoughtful, walking up the the right wall. “I used custom moulds to make the _Cascade of Dreams_ , but we’ll start with free-blowing and make a simple sphere. What colour do you want?”  
Whiteout began to say something, then reconsidered and answered “Dark red.”  
“Okay.” Thoughtful reached up into the cubby with the deep red sticks and pulled one out, then went to the left wall and got a pair of goggles, tossing one to Whiteout before slipping off his glasses and putting his own pair on (his were special goggles made to accommodate for his nearsightedness, and were a different colour from all the other, interchangeable pairs). Then he put the stick in the furnace.  
They waited until the stick was molten and white-hot (which didn’t take very long), and then Thoughtful took a glass scoop and a pipe from the right wall supply rack, handing the latter to Whiteout.  
“Hold this to your mouth and keep it steady,” he said as he carefully took the glass out of the fire and put the molten blob on the end of the pipe. “Now blow into it. Just try not to breathe any fire, since the pipe isn’t really made for that.”  
As soon as he’d said that, a sudden realization popped into his head, and he felt awkward for not thinking of it earlier.  
“Wait… Whiteout, can you breathe fire?”  
“No.” she said, then craned her neck upwards and blew out a small cloud of steam.  
“Huh. That’s actually kind of neat. Don’t let it get in the pipe, though.”  
“No worries."

Several minutes later, after it had cooled down to a reasonable temperature, Thoughtful took the newly-made glass ball off the pipe. It was a deep yet translucent oxblood colour, and around the same diameter as his head.  
“Did you get the hang of it?” he asked.  
Whiteout nodded.  
“I would like to try this again, but this time with one of your begetters.”  
Silvery-blue spots of confusion swam in front of Thoughtful’s eyes.  
_Why does she want me to leave all of a sudden?_ he wondered. But he obliged, swapping his goggles for his glasses and exiting the studio.  
“Dad, Whiteout wants to practice her glassblowing with you,” he said, stopping at the doorway of his father’s room.  
Sapience looked up from his concept art and arched an eye ridge. “I thought you were the one who was teaching her?”  
“She wants you to do it, for some reason. Well, you or Mom. I don’t know, either. I’ll just wait in my room until you’re done.”  
“Alright.” Sapience got up, and Thoughtful moved out of the way as his father headed towards the studio, before quickly going to his own room.

About fifteen minutes later, Thoughtful heard his dad calling him, probably from the living room judging by the sound.  
“Coming, Dad,” he said, making his way towards whatever surprise Whiteout had prepared.  
She was sitting in the living room, holding a large glass ball in both paws. This ball was bicoloured - white and purple, swirling around one another.  
White and purple - the colours that Whiteout and Thoughtful, respectively, saw as the colour of love.  
“Wow.” was all that Thoughtful could say. Then he found his voice (and, apparently, his ability to grin). “Thank you so much!”  
“No bones of contention here.” said Whiteout. She was smiling just as much as him.  
“I’m going to put this on my treasure shelf. Seriously, thanks!” He gently took it in one paw, gingerly balancing it on his palm.  
Just as he was about to turn around and start a three-legged sidle back to his room, he remembered what exactly Whiteout had said at the jubilee.  
_You should teach me glassblowing, and I should teach you clarity._  
“Whiteout?” he asked.  
“Yes?”  
“When are you going to start teaching me clarity?”  
“This gift was your first tutorial.” she said, unfolding her inverse-night-sky wings.  
Thoughtful did the same with his, and they looked deep into the starscapes etched on each others’ wings and thought about the colours of the worlds inside and outside their minds.  
And for a brief moment, it felt like both of them could see right through one another - like they were both as clear as glass.


End file.
